Why the Identity of Journalists Must be Interrogated Afresh

Moses Ekpo, Deputy Governor of Akwa Ibom State dwells on the need to rally a people for the right kind of information for joint-action in development

I am glad to facilitate with the House of Representatives Committee on Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Value on this important occasion of this conference.

Given the categories of persons listed in the conference brochure as eligible for participation, I regard the conference as an assemblage of journalists and other information and communication stakeholders who have come together to reassess their place and role in a Federation severely blighted by end-stage crisis of confidence and trust amongst its federating units with grave consequences on national development.

This conference is important to me because the concerns captured in the theme of the conference: Information As A Tool For National Development, represent a national-level upgrade of what our colleagues in Akwa Ibom State have been grappling with in recent times through conferences, workshops and seminars where I have also had the privilege of participation.

The enabling environment for self-actualization rooted in freedom and a sense of belonging is a major pre-condition for national development. It is the spirit of patriotism emanating from knowing that a country cares for and tracks the fortune of each of its citizens to the extent of generating the “critical mass” of nationally conscious, self-sustaining citizenry.

The current situation where government is in a state of perpetual war against the citizenry, and seeks to forge nationhood through cohesion amounts to living in a fool’s paradise, in that it ignores the age-old wisdom that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

While information may be distinct from the tangible elements of development – national or sub-national, it is a critical means to both the attainment of development and its sustenance. For, as we all know, it takes just the right kind of information to rally a people for joint-action in development. It also requires the appropriate dose of wrong information to disunite a people and render them incapable of basic subsistence, development and self-worth.

The latter situation is unfortunately the fate of Nigeria at the moment where at the level of both government and the governed, there seems to be a competition as to who would outsmart whom in disuniting the people.

By means of fake news, hate speeches and misinformation, national development is being daily compromised. And when government fails to speak up in order to counter such misinformation and hate-speeches, the body language of such inaction in high places becomes even louder in it incendiary decibel. The result of this is avoidable deaths which are daily recorded in all parts of the country. And the worst of all for national harmony, cohesion and development, are the incessant clashes between herdsmen and farmers, unknown gunmen, so-called bandits as well as inter-ethnic tension arising from the activities of these “faceless” groups.

As stated earlier, by means of such themes as, ‘Managing Our Diversity: the Public Relations Perspective’; ‘Conflict Sensitivity Reportage’ and ‘Constructive Engagement with State Actors,’ etc, information managers and communication stakeholders in my state have recently weighed in on the quest for a solution to the misinformation-induced national development crisis. The view emanating from such engagements is that information managers should take ownership of the business of leadership, with criticism undertaken only as an act of public service.

But certain clarifications need to be made at this point in order that we can have a proper estimation of the challenge at hand. Peace, social harmony and inter-ethnic rapprochement are the pre-requisites for genuine national development. We do not have these pre-conditions at the moment in our country, which accounts for the current stalemate in national development and declining foreign investment inflow. I think, therefore, that the challenge is first and foremost on how to deploy the information tool for the deliberate purpose of building confidence, trust and consensus amongst our various peoples.

In this connection, permit me to refer to the insights offered recently by Dapo Olurunyomi, the Publisher of Premium Times, at the 17th Annual Nigerian Guild of Editors Conference in Abuja. In his keynote paper, titled: ‘Media In Times of Crisis: Resolving Conflict, Achieving Consensus,’ Mr. Olurunyomi among other knotty issues zeroed in on the identity crisis of the information purveyor in the current age of digitalization and online deployment of information.

Some of the points raised in that paper relate to the transition to a digital economy which introduced the most systemic change in the geometry of media business since the mid-nineties, affecting the way products and services would henceforth be produced, and leading to a sudden but total disruption of the received business model of news entrepreneurship. The paper also noted that decentralization of access created a major democratization of content and platforms that offer the practitioner no obligations of ethical demands, but allow everyone to now be called a ”Journalist.”

Given the foregone, the question as to who is a journalist must be posed with a new kind of vehemence. This is so because in discussing the deployment of the information tool towards national development, we should be definite about the human agency of such deployment – would that also include the online blogger and the other assortments of social media information carriers over whom there is currently no control?

In Akwa Ibom State, the state chapter of the NUJ has come up with an electronic register of duly certified journalists in the state. I recommend this in states where it is not yet done. Such register and the data it provides are a critical first step in the admittedly monumental workload ahead of us in separating the real from the fake journalists, and thereby narrowing down the focus of accountability regarding the effect of information on national development. Addressing that workload will involve greater collaboration amongst stakeholders within and outside of government.

I agree that there is a lot that is positive about the liberalization of the media space in the wake of digitization, its apparent open-ended license notwithstanding. But in order not to throw away the baby with the bath water, stakeholders such as the Ministries of Information, teachers of Mass Communication in our institutions of higher learning, the National Broadcasting Commission, and hands-on media practitioners, etc, should come together to brainstorm on the way forward. The motivation in all these should of course be to return the elements of truth, fairness and patriotism, typical of traditional media practice, to the contemporary digitalized information space.

This way, attempts at regulation such as the recent Twitter-ban would be conceived and executed with the best of intension, and not as act of vendetta. If the news media must be the voice of conscience and truth, these are the irreducible minimum in house-cleaning expected of stakeholders.

I believe that this conference represents the early steps in a nation-wide movement to embark on this house-cleaning by reasserting the place of information as a tool for national development and deploying same as a counter-culture against hate speeches and even negative body-language on the part of government.

As for the nitty-gritty and details of such intervention, there is no doubt that the resource-persons for this conference are well able to hold their own. That being the case, I am confident that we will at the end of this conversation, individually and collectively resolve to return to our various circuits with the message of a new, truth-driven and patriotic information dissemination paradigm adopted for the unity of our country and national development. This would be further facilitated if the National Assembly, as a step further from the conference, come up with appropriate legislations that would help the real journalist operate more successfully, while sending the pretenders out of business.

In defense of his idea of an exclusive club for men, Leonarld Michaels, the author of the book, ‘Men’s Club,’ had said that: “the unity of lions would usually get other animals in the forest to sit up.” I believe that any such resolve to unite for action would most likely work in more or less the same way for all groups, particularly the one involving seasoned and tested professionals like the gentlemen and ladies here gathered.

Let me thank the House of Representatives Committee on Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Value for making this workshop possible. I wish to also commend the consultants on this project, Entdesigns Resources Hub Limited for this laudable initiative.

I thank the resource-persons and participants for latching onto this vision with an impressive attendance. It is my hope that as pen pushers, our joint resolve to aggressively use information as a tool for the development of our country will make all the needed difference. After all, as they say, the pen is mightier than the sword.

**Ekpo spoke at a national conference on information organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Value in Abuja